Friends,
Today is 2 July. On this day, 1776, as the Continental Congress was meeting in Philadelphia to declare independence, Commander-in-Chief George Washington was gathering his troops on Long Island to meet the British in battle in and around New York City. He wrote in the General Orders to his men that day these words:
The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a state of wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; this is all we can expect.
We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die: Our own country's honor, all call upon us for a vigorous and manly exertion, and if we now shamefully fail, we shall become infamous to the whole world.
Let us therefore rely upon the goodness of the cause, and the aid of the supreme Being, in whose hands victory is, to animate and encourage us to great and noble actions. The eyes of the countrymen are now upon us, and we shall have their blessings and praises, if happily we are the instruments of saving from the tyranny meditated against them. Let us therefore animate and encourage each other and show the whole world that a freeman contending for liberty on his own ground is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth.
These words are as true today as they were in 1776.
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